From Finnish Lapland to Limassol, teenagers get set for EU translation contest

Up to 3 300 teenagers from all over Europe will test their language skills in the European Commission's fourth annual 'Juvenes Translatores' Young Translators' Contest for schools on 23 November. The contest will be held at the same time in all the schools, from Kittilä in Finnish Lapland to Limassol in Cyprus. The test runs for two hours, from 10 to 12 noon Brussels time, under the supervision of the schools.

“I am delighted that so many schools want to take part in the contest - the number of participants is up 13% on last year, with nearly 60 more schools involved this time,” said Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth. "This is a super opportunity for young people to pit their language skills against the best students in other countries. It also demonstrates an excellent commitment to language learning by education authorities and teachers."

More than 1600 schools applied to take part in the contest – the highest number since it was launched. For practical reasons, the Commission used a random selection method to determine which schools could take part. The full list of participating schools is available on the contest website:

The entrants must be born in 1993 and each school can enter up to five pupils to take part in the test. The pupils receive a one-page text and have two hours to translate it as fluently as possible from a language of their choice into any of the EU's 23 official languages.

Professional translators from the Commission's Directorate-General for Translation will evaluate and mark the translations. The contest jury will choose the best translation from each Member State and the winners will be announced in February 2011.

As in previous years, all the winners will be invited to an award ceremony in Brussels to receive their prizes from Androulla Vassiliou, the Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, and to meet EU translators.